Helping Students Distinguish Between Revising and Editing


Apr 11 2007

Helping Students Distinguish Between Revising and Editing

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Brainstorm & categorize writing process strategies

    • Brainstorm process activities as a class. Students often bring different experiences to English 110, but they might not be aware of the multitude of strategies they can try at each stage of the writing process. Brainstorming capitalizes on their expertise and introduces them to a range of options. (See Ashley Holmes’ example)
    • Brainstorm only revising and editing practices, categorizing items on the board as students offer additions.

    Discuss rhetoric textbook and handbook descriptions of revising and editing. Compare how different texts discuss each process stage.

      • For instance, The Brief Thomson Handbook describes the writing process as “fluid movement among different kinds of activities” and visually highlights the often non-linear process (10). Yet the handbook also clearly differentiates between revising and editing using descriptive terms for activities that fall under each stage (see p. 11).
      • Like The Brief Thomson Handbook, Meeting of Minds emphasizes revising and editing to meet readers’ needs. The rhetoric textbook offers chapters on both of these stages of the writing process (see Chapters 11 and 12).
      • Work in Progress encourages students to “find your own best way” (40). The author notes that different strategies work better for different writers; she suggests that students take the time to try a variety of process writing strategies until they find the best-fit options.

      Making this discussion explicit helps students throughout the writing process.

      • Students will be better prepared to identify peer feedback prompts asking about content and structure, as opposed to prompts asking about word choice, grammar, and punctuation.
      • Students will be prepped to make more substantial revisions if they understand the categories of changes classified as revisions (as opposed to edits).

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